I recently had cause to visit my local Post Office & found myself queuing behind a line of people who I took to be E-bayers as they all had armfuls of small packages to post.

My first instinct was to turn and walk away, I hate queuing, but thought better of it, instead deciding to be patient and wait my turn.

I couldn’t help overhearing the disgruntled comments being made by those ahead of me in the queue, and before long, those behind me too.

Much of that comment was directed towards the three members of the Post Office staff who, so it appeared, were in no hurry to clear the queue. In fact one of them had decided to take her coffee break and stand talking with the other two which further slowed progress down.

Whilst waiting I looked around the shop. It was rather grubby, poorly displayed and frankly had a real “couldn’t care less” attitude about it. My instinct to walk out was growing, but I had moved up the queue a bit and thought that it might be interesting to see how well I would be served when I eventually reached the counter.

When I did get there it was no surprise to find myself in front of a rather sour faced woman who by her dress quite plainly had no interest in her presentation. She neither looked at me nor offered any form of smile and was frankly quite rude, talking with her colleague about her weekend whilst paying me scant attention.

I left the shop as a very unhappy customer, determined never to go there again. I headed down the road to my bank.

In the next queue, in the bank, I watched the counter where there were four positions, of which one was open. Behind the dropped screens of the others I could plainly see members of staff stood around in conversation while the queue shuffled its feet.

When I eventually reached the counter, the young lady teller was polite, smiling and apologetic about my wait in the queue. Next to her serving aperture was a notice, “Have I served you well today?” My business concluded, I thanked her but felt compelled to tell her that her employers were letting her down big time, because however well she was serving her customers, her manager needed to ensure that there was sufficient front line staff to handle the number of customers that came into the bank. In truth his lack of judgement left that young lady open to a constant stream of criticism from disgruntled customers. I wished her well and left.

Driving home it struck me how the two scenarios I had just experienced could easily be played out in the virtual world online.

Think about it. Does your website smile at its visitors? Is it uncluttered and easy to navigate? Does it make people feel welcome? You have but a few seconds to impress an online visitor before they click away. Your “shop” needs to be clean and tidy. It needs to make your customer’s experience an easy and pleasant one.

The same applies to your Social Media presence. This time it is more about your use of words. Do your posts read easily? Are they interesting? Might they cause a smile? Would they inspire others to share them with their online friends? – Or are they just blocks of facts and sales blurb?

By relating our online activity to how it would be seen and reacted to in the physical world gives us a better insight into its impact on those visitors, followers and “friends” we work so hard to attract and meet in the virtual world.

Think about that Post Office & Bank. - Is that how you want the world to think of you?

A little while ago whilst driving my son to a council meeting, I witnessed a sight which disturbed me at the time and still occasionally comes back uncomfortably into my thoughts.

We were passing through a local council housing estate which is currently undergoing a lot of modernisation and upgrading, but never-the-less still has more than its fair share of problems.

Opposite the local pub a man, clearly the worse for drink was on his knees hanging onto a road sign with one hand and beating his fist at it with the other.  He was plainly very distressed, he looked to be sobbing and was very dishevelled.

As we passed by my son commented that he was just a drunken bum, and he may have been right, but the look on that man’s face left me feeling very uncomfortable.

It is possible that he may have had relationship problems but the mask of despair on his face was terrible.

Somehow, to me he was representative of the pain that so many people in our country are suffering right now.  The despair of the dole queue, the frustration of not being able to do right by your family, the fear and uncertainty shared by so many people who are scared and desperate, but don’t know which way to turn.

Our country is in a critical dept position which has been brought about through long term mismanagement of our finances. We have borrowed without thought to how we can repay the interest, let alone the capital. We have sanctioned incredible bonuses to the few at the top who have brought such misery to the many at the bottom.

To those who would pass judgement on the drunken man for spending what little he had on alcoholic solace I would point out that his misery may well have been brought about by those for whom hardship means that they may have to keep the Bentley for a second year instead of the usual annual upgrade!

Social Media has become somewhat of a buzz word in 2011. The newspapers are full of stories involving it, everybody is talking about it, some people are even doing it, but most businesses are still scratching their heads unsure what to do with it or how it might even help them.

The traditional marketing mix for small and medium business has been one dominated by advertisements in newspapers and magazines with perhaps one in Yellow Pages, if the budget would stand it. The more adventurous might pay for some airtime on the local radio, attend local events and perhaps join a local networking group.

But times have changed folks!. Newspapers circulations are down, Yellow Pages are in their death throws and radio advertising is damned expensive. Even television advertising, if you could afford it, is losing its impact as people find ways to fast forward through the adverts.

The simple truth is the days of push marketing, where an advert containing the information you want people to see is pushed in front of them, are declining.

People want more than that now. They want to know who they’re dealing with. They want to ask questions and get answers. They want to go beyond what you decide to show them in an advert. They are on the internet, they are on Social Networking sites and they are asking those questions.

The answers they get may be coming from your competitors, from your existing happy customers or possibly, gulp, you’re not so happy customers! If you are not actively engaging them how would you ever know what they are saying, what you are missing and importantly what business you could be getting?

Social Media is the new way of using the web. It involves both listening and talking. It’s about both being there for friends and engaging with strangers and its being done on a daily basis by virtually everyone who is buying goods and services on the internet.

People are giving tips, sharing advice and giving answers about things they have bought and work they have had done, they are promoting and they are complaining. They are talking about their next dental, optician or doctor’s appointment and they are talking about their next holiday or restaurant booking.

The fact is Social Media and businesses are inexorably converging on line very rapidly. How can any business afford to ignore these people?  In fact they would surely ignore them at their peril. The reality is that the only choice business has now is to engage these people on their own turf, to meet where they gather, and to do it fast!

‎“I want to be present wherever the people are found.”- those are the words of Pope Benedict XVI as he joined the social media revolution on Wednesday 29th June sending his first ever tweet from an Apple iPad, saying  “Dear Friends, I just launched News.va Praised be our Lord Jesus Christ! With my prayers & blessings, Benedictus XVI”

The Vatican’s Twitter following surged by over 2000 disciples in the hour following the Pontiff’s entry into the world of Social Media, taking its total Twitter flock to over 43000.

In recent times the gradual decline in the influence of the Catholic Church has led the Vatican to seek out  new and more effective ways of spreading its Word to a wider audience.

The resulting social networking campaign, which now includes a presence on Facebook and Youtube, began in March 2010 with the launch of the Vatican’s first social media initiative the Vatican Twitter pages in English, French, Spanish, German, Italian and Portuguese.

Pope Benedict recently praised online social media, although identifying some dangers in the new technology.

He said in a January statement for the church’s World Communications Day – “In the digital world, transmitting information increasingly means making it known within a social network, where knowledge is shared in the context of personal exchanges”

“This dynamic has contributed to a new appreciation of communication itself, which is seen first of all as dialogue, exchange, solidarity and the creation of positive relations,”

The announcement of the new Vatican news portal www.news.vn.en brings this social media presence together, aggregating broadcasts and providing images and videos of the Pope.

Isn’t it interesting to see that one of the oldest institutions in the world is now using one of the newest technologies in the world to continue its ministry, to build its brand and deliver its message?

A missionary is by definition a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development.

The Catholic Church could be said then, to be using its social media as a modern day virtual missionary!

Like keen golfers all over the world I was glued to my television this last weekend watching the 2011 US Open golf tournament.

Young Rory McIlroy, a twenty two year old lad from Northern Ireland gave the world a lesson in how to play the game of golf. He seemingly effortlessly broke record after record in front the world’s media and in front of the forty five thousand spectators who cheered and called his name at every tee and on every green. After seventy two holes spread over four days he finally lifted one of the most coveted golf trophies in the world and the biggest prize cheques to go with it. More than that, he earned the praise and respect of the world’s greatest golf professionals and of all those lucky enough to have witnessed his incredible display of skill.

Here at last was a serious challenge to the now fading memory of the once unstoppable Tiger Woods.

Rory is now a millionaire in his own right. The endorsements and prize cheques to come will surely guarantee his financial security for the rest of his life.

But this wasn’t a rich kid from a privileged home where his passion might have been nurtured from the inside of a platinum account cheque book. This was an ordinary young man from an ordinary home. This was a young man with an extraordinary dedication to achieve his dream, a dream nurtured and encouraged by his own desire and by his parents unwavering support.

There is a powerful message in this. No one is born a golfer. Golf is learned and skills are honed. Most of us who enjoy the game can relate our development directly to the amount of practice we put into it. Those that take it seriously take lessons from a professional and put that learning into practice, and then practice and practice some more. The more this discipline is applied the greater is our success.

That principle applies to most things we do, but particularly to our professional lives. It is the person who makes the decision that he is going to succeed, who puts the time in, no matter what, who learns and then puts that learning into practice, who makes mistakes and learns from those mistakes, who never wavers from his intention and belief that he will succeed. This is the person who eventually reaches his desired outcome and enjoys its ample reward.

There is another pointer to success in Rory McIlroy’s story. Rory is an amazing golfer, that’s what he does, and that’s where his focus stays. He employs a golf coaching team to improve his game, a caddy to carry his clubs and share advice as he works his way around the golf course. He has a Manager who manages his itinerary, his publicity and his finances, in fact his manager looks after most of his off course arrangements.  Success demands that he sticks to what he is good at and that he stays absolutely focused on his goal.

As a business grows, the successful ones employ specialists to take responsibility for disciplines outside of the central function ensuring there is no dilution of focus and no taking of the eye off the ball. The lesson to all of us is that trying to be a jack of all trades and ending up a master of none is a recipe for mediocrity not success.

Few people in business today would argue the assertion that networking, or word of mouth marketing, offers them their best conversion potential. But why is that?  Why does networking open so many doors?

I would suggest that it has much to do with relationships. People really do like to deal with people. They like to be able to interact with someone that they are going to do business with. They like to feel that they know the person who is going to take their money.

Relationship makes for a warmer & cosier transaction.

The days of expensive newspaper or print based advertising are on the wane. Static advertisements extolling the virtue of a product in a one way conversation are no longer satisfying the minds of the people they are aimed at. The customer now wants to be heard, to ask questions & above all to get answers.

If the consumer can’t have that conversation with the vendor directly, then the recommendation of someone they know and who they can speak to carries a great deal of weight in their decision making process. So a referral puts a vendor on the radar and carrying a green light.

We all routinely give referrals.  If we have had a happy experience with a product or service, we naturally recommend it to our friends and to people we meet along the way. We all network in one form or another without realising it. Any meeting or get together constitutes a networking event.  Certainly not everyone could or would want to attend an organised networking event, but those same people would perhaps be, and in a vast number of cases are, already plugged into Social Media platforms.

They are on Twitter, they are on Facebook and they are on YouTube. They are networking!

Social Media Marketing puts a business, a product or an idea into the conversation on the Social Web. It does it subtly; it engages people in conversation and allows the questions to be asked – and the questions to be answered. It allows a flow of information and it builds the relationships which lead to an increased level of trust. The people in those conversations become a network of potential brand advocates ready to say that “they know a man who can”

How often have you discussed a subject and heard someone say “I was talking to a chap the other day who……..I’ll get him to give you a ring” or the like?

In its broadest sense then, the answer to the oft asked question “What is Social Media Marketing” could reasonably be given as – Networking on Line.

People like to deal with people, people need to connect with people and people want to buy from people. Most of us, whilst we wouldn’t necessarily say we feel uneasy about faceless transactions, are much happier to do business with a person or face we can relate to. It gives us an added faith in the transaction if we can feel some connectivity with whoever is taking our money.

It’s about relationship. It’s about having relationships in a world that is fast replacing the relationship we have with each other with a phony relationship that technology is pushing us to have with machines. Witness how difficult it is to connect with a real person when you phone big organisations that have you bobbing between a seemingly endless line of pre-recorded instructions. Supermarkets are doing their damndest to get us to use un-manned check outs, petrol stations are now almost universally self service and even the best of department stores rarely have sales staff to help you and merely point you in the direction of the nearest Pay Here desk.

As the world becomes ever more populated and we individually have less and less space we are becoming more and more isolated in a bigger and bigger crowd.

Millions of people across the world have found a new way of connecting with each other and having those relationships courtesy of the Social Web. Sat at home & through their computer screens they can now connect with people they would previously never have come into contact with in their everyday lives. These people are spending an increasing amount of their time engrossed in this addictive activity.

The online conversation these people are having offers business an amazing opportunity to connect with potential customers, if approached in the right way. It has to be recognised that this is occurring on the Social Web, not a commercial channel. Those that start an online conversation with a sales pitch will almost certainly find themselves at best ignored and more likely deleted from the conversation.

The key is to take a “party approach.” To come into a conversation in the same way that one might join a conversation amongst people you don’t know at a party. Let people get to know you and ask you about yourself and then you build a relationship. You are no longer an anonymous chunk of text on their screen. You have become a person and so when you do introduce your offer, whatever it may be, you are someone that they can relate to and thereby someone that they can feel comfortable doing business with.

The power of the Social web is found in the sheer numbers of people occupying that space. Treated properly it can be an almost limitless networking group with a truly viral and global capability.

To join the conversation you have only to smile and say hello!

In the days when factories and mills dominated the British landscape, hundreds, sometimes thousands of local people would join together each morning and swarm through a factory’s gates, chatting away as they each headed to their appointed workplace on the production line. At the end of the day and as the factory whistle blew to signal time on another day’s labours, this brotherhood of workers would once more come together in a hundred conversations as they made their tired and weary way home to their loved ones.

At home, the evening would likely be spent with family, eating, talking and resting ahead of the next day’s appointment with the factory. Some might, when finance allowed, partake of a thirst quenching pint in a local hostelry where they would meet up with friends and acquaintances from their workplace and continue arguing the day’s conversation.

But times change and mechanisation pushed more and more workers out of the factory gate never to return again. The volume of the factory workforce shrank and the numbers of desperate folk tasting the bitter pill of unemployment steadily grew.

It didn’t end there. Businesses found themselves unable to compete on price with foreign factories whose labour costs were so much lower, allowing them to produce very similar products at much lower prices. The inevitable result of this was the total closure of vast numbers of factories, mills, steel works and foundries, indeed the demise of entire industries from the UK economy. Many of those factories that were left then found it more cost effective to up stakes and take their entire business’s and the jobs that went with them abroad to relocate themselves where costs were significantly lower for them too.

No longer working in industries that had for so long provided the heart and soul of many of our towns and cities, the people had, to a great degree, lost the sense of place and community that went with being part of a large workforce. The jobs that were then created to replace those in the manufacturing sector tended to be for smaller employers and therefore working among fewer people. The days of the workforce brotherhood were gone and with it’s going, the conversation died.

At home the living space was now dominated by that box in the corner, the conversation killer, the television.  Television has taken a dominant role in the lives of so many people in Britain, leaving no space for conversation as it demands the attention of all within its sight. The art of conversation was now critically under threat of extinction.

Then along came the internet. At first its purpose was the sharing of information in a one-way communication stream much like an online encyclopaedia. It was interesting to many people but used by few. That is, until the Web moved from being a purely navigational tool to a transactional tool. Suddenly, people could make purchases, ask questions and get responses. Internet access became faster and faster and the second great online revolution had begun – the ability to join the world of online publishing through a blog had arrived. Then as online publishing of user generated content became easier and easier, the online conversation grew and grew with it.

What we now know as the Social Web was gradually taking shape and establishing itself. My Space, then Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and their like, made conversation possible between people who had a computer and an internet connection anywhere in the world. Youngsters migrated away from the television to sit at a PC and talk through a keyboard with friends down the road and with new friends they made across the world. A new age of conversation had arrived and was thriving.

The journey for online conversation is still in the starting blocks. The urge and need for conversation and interaction with our fellow man is a basic instinct that society has unfortunately suppressed in recent times. Witness the constant use of mobile phones which are used far more to keep in touch with someone, anyone, than they are to deliver a specific message. We need conversation and 30 million people in the UK, that’s half the population, have demonstrated that need by signing up to Facebook. Half of those people will log in to their account each day and join in and become part of the online conversation.

It may be that the mechanics of conversation have moved from chatting over the garden fence or as part of a workforce streaming through a factory gate, into conversation initiated and carried out from a keyboard, but the art of conversation is coming back and that has to be a good thing. After all, we all know that it’s good to talk, don’t we?

It seems that anybody who is anybody is writing a blog today. But what is a blog & why would anyone want to keep one?

The term Blog describes a website or part of a website where a frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts, photographs, videos and Web links is published. Blog can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

At the end of the twentieth century blogging was an increasingly popular way of keeping and sharing a personal online journal or diary. With the rise in ownership of personal computers and the movement towards open content distribution the blog became a natural progression from the closed book of a personal diary.

As the idea has developed blogging has widened its remit and promoted its devotees from mere diarists into amateur reporters and publishers. Whilst the majority of personal blogs are only ever read by their creators, blogs have gained increasing notice and coverage for their role in breaking, shaping, and spinning news stories right across the globe.

In times of crisis blogs have often been the source of news breaking to the world or been the voice of the repressed whose voices might otherwise have had no platform to be heard from. At these times a blog offers a unique perspective on events often written on the spot and as the drama unfolds.

Since 1997, when the power of the internet started to really impact on the commercial world, traditional printed and media advertising has seen its dominance relegated to a supporting role behind the booming internet website culture. That evolution has continued, and today the Social Web is starting to lead the way in business marketing.

Now in the second decade of the twenty first century the blog has taken on a unique and very important role for the modern business owner. It acts as the interface between his dynamic Social Media platforms and the more static nature of his website. The direct consumer engagement of micro blogging sites like Facebook and Twitter is best harnessed by directing traffic to a business website by way of an interesting, varied and up to date blog.

A blog offers its creator the chance to enhance the engagement with its visitors by offering compelling and unique content which continues to build trust and relationship. When the visitor then moves to the next element in the sales funnel, the website, he is already in a positive frame of mind towards the author and thus far more likely to take some action or become a purchasing customer.

Because creating blog content can be time consuming and does require an amount of creative skill, it is a step that is commonly left out or ignored by those engaging Social Media to promote their brand or service. There is a cost involved by virtue of time spent in creating, or cash spent having someone else create, interesting blog content, but this missing link can be the difference between success and failure in a Social Media strategy.

I did something this week that I rarely do. I took an opportunity to head up to London for the day, a trip justified by visiting a client of mine who was exhibiting in the Franchise Show at the Excel Centre. Even more unusually for me, I decided to travel by coach.

I have for some while been tempted to try the new Greyhound service to the Big City. The cost of fuel, parking (where & when you can find it) and the congestion charge, along with the stress of driving through a permanent traffic jam make a compelling argument to let the coach take the strain.

Sat in my comfortable window seat and with a complimentary newspaper to read while the driver went about his business I just knew I had made the right decision.  I was sat at a level which gave me a very different view of the world and the roads than the one I more usually get driving my car. Whilst I enjoyed that I was appalled at the amount of litter I could see on the roadside verges as we drove out of Southampton and up onto the M3. I cannot understand the mentality of those who drop litter anywhere and expect others to clear up after them. To my mind such people do not deserve to live in a civilised society, they are plainly not civilised, but that’s a rant for another day!

Having skimmed through the paper I was able to pull out my iphone and get some of my own work done posting onto Facebook and Twitter as we headed towards London. I was not in the least surprised to note that many of my fellow passengers were tapping away on their phones or laptops too.

After arriving at a very busy Victoria Coach Station, I was soon walking off towards Westminster Bridge where I intended getting a tube out to Canning Town before hopping on the Dockland Light Railway to Excel. I love walking in London. There is something exciting about the place. The noise, the bustle, the people and the sense of history are, in my mind, unique to our capital city.

Victoria is an arrival and a departure point for thousands of folk coming and going from London each and every day. The pavements are full of people hurrying this way and that way. These people are of all shapes and sizes, all colours and races and they talk in all sorts of languages. Most of them seem to be in a hurry and most of them seem to be alone. It is amazing to see how many of them are walking along with a mobile phone either held to an ear or with one hand tapping text.  Is that because they feel a need to connect with someone or is that they just can’t afford to waste the time they spend walking without being in some way productive?

At Westminster Bridge and around Parliament Square tourists were raising cameras and mobile phones to record images of London’s famous and landmark buildings. London Eye, Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament all being digitally recorded, and often those images being sent straight off through the ether to far flung corners of the globe, instantly through mobile phone technology.

On the tube folk who stood up or who sat down were using their mobiles  to talk, to text, Facebook, Tweet or play games. Each in their own private world and few with any word to say to their fellow passengers. As they exited the train they carried on talking and texting as they disappeared off and out of view.

On my return to Victoria later that afternoon the mass of humanity heading off home for the weekend were busy on their phones too, saying their goodbyes to London and hellos to those waiting for them at their journeys end. For someone like me who is not a frequent visitor to the capital, the sheer numbers of people in and around Victoria was amazing, if not a little intimidating.

Unbelievably, our coach driver was unable to unlock the coach despite a couple of changes of key sets. The sixty or so passengers were left standing around outside the coach as darkness fell for a full three quarters of an hour before a substitute coach pulled up to take us home. During that wait mobile phones were in constant use advising family and friends of the delay, and yet, whilst there were so many voices to be heard there appeared to be no conversation taking place at all between fellow passengers.

Finally in the warmth and comfort of our seats on the coach we set off into the evening traffic. Throughout the coach people were talking. Talking that is, into their mobile phones. Phones were ringing a dozen different ring tones. Some people shouting into their phone telling the wife or girlfriend to book a restaurant or to meet them in a bar. Another fellow talking into his phone so loudly that he was  telling us all, about his business trip to Iraqi. Others were playing games or, as the girl next to me, Facebooking for the entire journey.

What was slightly surreal was that once we were out of the city and heading along the motorway the inside of the coach was lit up by the glow coming from all the live phone screens.

By the time we arrived back in Southampton I was gasping for a drink and took the short walk to a favourite pub of mine, the Duke of Wellington in Bugle Street. There with a pint to quench my thirst and a roaring log fire to keep me warm, I reflected on my day.

Strange though it may seem, it was the abundance and the constant use of mobile phones that filled my mind. That device has become like a best friend to so many people. It is a communication tool, and yet it seems, it actually makes people more insular. Rather than making an effort to befriend and chat with those around them, people prefer to hide behind this little machine and isolate themselves in so doing. So often too they prefer to text so they don’t even have to talk to anyone! It is all very strange to me.

Anyhow, after a second pint it was my turn to take out my phone and call home to beg a lift. As I made the call I looked around the pub only to see that several people were sat with a phone in their hand too. I don’t know why but it made me chuckle as I headed to the bar to get a swift half before my wife arrived to pick me up. Mobile phones, what would we do without them?